


World on Fire

by ScreechTheMighty



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Devoid of Context, Drabble, Gen, Mind Reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 14:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3941137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScreechTheMighty/pseuds/ScreechTheMighty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a while, Matt was pretty sure Wanda Maximoff was avoiding him. It turned out he was right about that, but not for the reasons he originally thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	World on Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a companion piece of shorts to "Establishing Baseline" but instead it turned into an exploration of the World on Fire. Inspired by a tumblr follower of mine who pointed out that Wanda might be able to glimpse how Matt sees the world because mind reading. Also because I can never pass up the opportunity to write about mind reading.

Matt was pretty sure Wanda Maximoff was avoiding him.

He heard a lot from the other Avengers, especially Clint (who had a lot of paternal instincts for someone who described himself as a “human train wreck”) and Pietro (who probably stuck around because he was impressed by Matt’s ability to dislocate a shoulder, something Matt found both flattering and worrying). But he barely heard anything from her. When he found out more about her abilities (which had before been summed up as “weird” but never really explained), her absence made sense. She could see into minds, and it wasn’t something she could turn off. God only knew what she’d seen in his. Maybe she’d glimpsed the devil, that violence and anger that he tried to keep down. People would tell Matt that he was a good person, but that didn’t make _it_ go away. And he could only imagine what it looked like to someone who didn’t know him well.

_What must she think of me?_

It bothered him for a while, but he didn’t confront her about it. He was more intent on making sure that their few interactions were as comfortable for her as possible. Matt Murdock, defense attorney, was pretty non-threatening as long as you weren’t on a witness stand. He tried to channel that.

She noticed.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

That was how she started the conversation. He knew the Maximoff twins were blunt, but this was a bit ridiculous. “I’d say it’s not polite to read people’s minds,” Matt said, “but considering that I habitually check people’s hearts to hear if they’re lying, I don’t think I have a leg to stand on.” He heard her laugh, soft and quiet. “I wasn’t sure. I know I’m not the calmest person, and with your abilities...I thought you were avoiding me.”

“Have you met my colleagues?” Her footsteps were light as she walked towards him. Matt had yet to meet someone who could sneak up on him, but she came close. “Doctor Banner, for instance.”

“Point taken. _Were_ you avoiding me?”

“…can you really tell if someone is lying?”

“Yes, but I don’t need to hear your heartbeat to tell in this case.” Matt smiled. “That is generally the kind of question that precedes a lie.”

She huffed, a noise that sounded almost exactly like the noise Pietro made when he was impatient (so, a noise Pietro made all the time). He knew that they were fraternal twins, brother and sister, but in moments like that, they seemed identical to him. “Yes, I was avoiding you. But it was because your…” She paused again. “Vision. Was disorienting.”

“My…” _Oh._ “You saw how I…see?” He hated saying that. He wasn’t above making blind jokes (he had a bet going with Sam to see how many he could make in a given conversation before someone hit him), but it could get exhausting, using sighted language to describe his blindness.

He heard a swishing of hair, probably a nod, then a sheepish, “Yes. It was unfamiliar to me, and…distracting.”

“It’s unfamiliar to most people, if that makes you feel any better. Took me a bit of getting used to.” It had come to him slowly, the world on fire, spreading from beyond his hospital bed, to the entire room, to the entire building. A world forming around him from every sense his sight had once drowned out. He called it the world on fire because he didn’t have any other words for it. Not without going into a lot of detail, some of which only made sense to him.

Wanda, it seemed, wanted detail.

“What do I look…how do you perceive me?”

He was impressed by the change of wording. Clint was the only one who didn’t use things like “see” in relation to Matt, and even that had taken some time. “Well…” Matt turned to face her fully. He wondered how it must have looked to her—eyes unseeing, looking at her but not _at_ her. Hopefully not too unsettling. “You’re only a little bit shorter than me,” he said. “If I didn’t know before, I’d guess you and Pietro are related because you talk similarly. I don’t mean accent, I mean, the way you say things, phrases you use, that kind of thing. You wear a lot of dresses and I’ve never heard you wear heels, so I’m guessing you don’t like them. Your body temperature runs a bit warmer than usual. I think you got your perfume from Pepper because it smells exactly like the same one she wears.” The surprised flutter of her heartbeat told him he was right. “You’re not wearing makeup right now. You don’t wear it all that often.”

“You can smell makeup?”

“I can.”

“What _can’t_ you smell?”

“Carbon monoxide?” He shrugged. “I can smell most things. Doesn’t always make living in a city easy.”

“Why not move somewhere else?”

“I love it here too much. You’re in good health, too. Good blood pressure. You can tell a lot about a person from their heart.”

She laughed again. “You must be a connoisseur of heartbeats.”

“I’ve never heard anyone say it that way before, but yes.” _Heartbeat connoisseur_. He’d have to tell Foggy about that one. “And all of that forms an impression. I wouldn’t really call it seeing, because there’s a lot I can’t see. I can tell when someone is smiling if they’re talking, but not before. Gestures are hard. I can hear things moving, guess what it might be from context, but I can also get that wrong.” That was why he was always grateful when Foggy told him what someone was doing. He knew his friend wasn’t being patronizing, and it took a lot of guesswork out of socializing. “I can’t tell what color your dress is, or your eyes, or hair. I know a lot more than most blind people do but it’s not the same as being able to see.”

She heard the rustle of her hair again—probably a nod—and a pause. “May I….see?”

It took him a second to figure out what she meant. She was asking permission to look into his mind, see as he saw. “…sure.” It was a bit disconcerting that she could do that, but she’d asked first. He doubted she would ask first if she had any intention of hurting him.

He heard her move closer, felt the heat of her hand near his face (close, but not touching it). He felt it grow warmer, and something brushing against his temple—like soft like fabric, but insubstantial, like wind. _Powers have a physical sensation. Who knew?_

After a few moments of silence, he asked: “What does it look like to you?”

Wanda didn’t reply right away. “…red,” she said quietly, almost distantly. “Like…blood.”

“That’s encouraging.”

“I mean like this.” Her hand rested against his chest, over his heart. “Like the veins and the heart. Beating and moving. But…without the skin.”

It was less troubling when she put it that way. Creepy, but it turned his stomach less. “I just call it the world on fire.”

“That is how you perceive it, I suppose. I see blood.” The warm feeling next to his temple faded, and her hand moved away from her chest. “It is not a bad thing.”

He nodded. It felt like a bad thing. Perhaps because so much of his life had already been associated with violence, hurting people. The devil in him. _She looked into my mind and she saw blood._

“I saw life.” Matt frowned when she answered his thought. “Sorry. It happens, I did not mean…”

“It’s fine.” He felt suddenly naked, exposed. “Like you said, it happens.”

She was so still and silent that, if it hadn’t been for her beating heart, Matt might not have been able to guess she was there. “We all have devils,” she said finally. “It is not only you.”

“…I know.” He knew that tone, the _speaking from experience_ tone. He’d heard stories about how the twins joined the Avengers. What they’d done before. _Picking up the nearest gun in your chase for justice._ “It’s easy to forget that.”

“It is.”

“…we do okay.”

He thought he heard a smile in her voice when she spoke again; if there was one, it must have been sad. “We do.”

She stopped avoiding him after that conversation.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what to call these two. Red Squad, maybe?? Suggestions?


End file.
